This invention is generally concerned with apparatus for mounting an ink jet cartridge on supporting structure, and, more particularly, with apparatus for facilitating manually removably mounting a disposable ink jet cartridge on a support structure.
As shown in U.S. Pat. 4,500,895 for a Disposable Ink Jet Head, issued Feb. 19, 1985 to Buck, et. al., it is known in the art to provide a disposable thermal ink jet print head, and, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,836 for a Printhead Cartridge and Carriage Assembly, issued Jul. 5, 1988 to Ta. et. al., it is know in the art to provide an ink jet printhead cartridge and a carrier therefor on which the cartridge is removably mountable.
In addition to the foregoing it is noted that since disposable ink cartridges of the type disclosed in the above patents are commercially available for use in ink jet printing equipment produced by diverse manufacturers, who are obliged to design the supporting structure on which the ink jet cartridge is removably mountable in consideration of the environment of the particular equipment in which the cartridge is to be used, the cartridge supporting structure found in a given manufacturer's product may be quite different from the corresponding structure found in another manufacturer's product. Thus, in the environment of the product with which the present invention is concerned, the supporting structure is constructed and arranged such that when mounting or dismounting disposable cartridges, the electrical terminals of the supporting structure tend to be abraded over time due to insufficient care being taken by customers to avoid contacting the terminals with the cartridges. As the result of such damage, signalled by the printing quality of the product correspondingly deteriorating over time, customer dissatisfaction with product performance has become widespread. Accordingly:
an object of the invention is to provide apparatus for facilitating removably mounting a disposable ink jet printing cartridge on supporting structure therefor; PA1 another object is to provide apparatus for facilitating mounting a disposable ink jet printing cartridge on supporting structure, and dismounting the cartridge therefrom, while avoiding damage to the supporting structure; and PA1 yet another object is to provide apparatus for facilitating removably mounting a disposable ink jet printing cartridge on supporting structure, having electrical terminals, in a manner such that damage to the terminals is avoided.